


Let Me Count the Ways

by fluffybunnybadass



Category: Pocket Monsters | Pokemon - All Media Types
Genre: 2nd person POV, F/M, and a handful of fluff too i suppose, calling my thirteen yo self out sm, much second-hand embarrassment, the setting/timeline isn't relevant but what IS relevant is the fact that these poems exist
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-25
Updated: 2020-11-25
Packaged: 2021-03-10 05:21:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,485
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27708281
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fluffybunnybadass/pseuds/fluffybunnybadass
Summary: You ever been with someone so long, it basically dates back to when you were an overly-embarrassing kid? And maybe you wrote some really bad poems about how much you love them, back when you were said embarrassing kid?yeah. this is one of those moments. Complete with excerpts from the actual poems.-this was inspired by a single line on a single tumblr post full of some one-liners. Please enjoy the cheese.
Relationships: self / Lance
Comments: 2
Kudos: 2





	Let Me Count the Ways

* * *

“Hey, honey, what's this?”

Lance had come over to help you organize your stuff; and while you were much more capable of focusing on smaller sections, he had taken over organizing your papers, while directing you to tidy up your desk.

You turn back to look at him, curious at what had caused him pause. And then your heart dropped. Eyes widen. You knew instantly from the aging sheet, far older than you, scribbled on with ink partially younger than you. Perhaps, just as old as...

Seeing your initial response, he raised an eyebrow and glanced at what was written on it in eye-searingly bright sky blue gel pen, a relic of an era long gone. Quick as a flash, you started to yell, “NO NO DON'T READ IT”, but it was too late. Far worse than any “edgy” poetry you had been known for in high school. Rather... it was something you had _never_ shown him, nor ever had any intention to, simply because it was faaaar too embarrassing.

_Kill me now_ , you thought, watching with despair as his eyes scanned the page. Or, rather, tried to scan, as thankfully the bright blue gel pen did not mesh well with the yellowed sheet that you had written it on at the time. But that only made it worse, for that meant that one had to spend much, _much_ more time and effort in trying to read it, and _that_ , my friends, is how the words scrawled as neatly as you could at that age, could be seared into one's memory.

It did not take your shout for him to realize what it was; it was the hand over the mouth as he tried not to laugh. You found yourself wanting to die, wanting to disappear and never be found again. This was it. You could never face him again. Nothing compared, not any terrible thing you had done, no terrible thought, not even the lashing out in pain and anger and depression, no fanfic or angsty childhood poem ever written before could compare. There was no coming back from this. Your mind zipped through a thousand different ways to escape, to hide, knowing that nothing could take this back. All you could do was watch, horrified, as his eyes attempted to scan the paper for its contents.

He had found those “love poems” you wrote when you first fell for him in 7th grade.

You groaned loudly. A prolonged, agonizing noise, uttered from the depths of your soul that you did not know you still had.

“Please kill me,” you muttered, shoulders sinking as you tried to make yourself, a large person with a large presence, small. “I don't... I don't want to know. I wrote those when I was a dumb kid, and I didn't know what I was doing, and it's not like I was serious at the time anyways, I was just trying to 'fit in' with the narrative of what I should have been doing at the time, and oh my god why are you still reading those PLEASE PUT THOSE DOWN AND DON'T YOU DARE LOOK AT ME.”

You don't even know what happened between the first page and second, where the eye-searing sky blue gel pen had now been replaced by an even brighter baby pink, whose words you could only read at an angle, for the light somehow reflected off of it and hit your cornea in just the wrong, most painful spot. How ironic that these two poems, which foretold of your doom seventeen years ago, would also hurt to look at physically. He had to hold the page back for the second one and tilt it until he could read it, and the laughter he tried to stifle only added to your agony. But the third page. Oh.... The third page was when you decided the first two pens were a bad idea to write with, and instead went for the plain and simple graphite pencil on a fresher, brighter, lined white sheet of wide-ruled paper.

A primal instinct of fear overtook you. You had somehow managed to wipe from your memories the words on these poems; all that you remembered was writing three different poems, and showing the first two to your equally embarrassed friend group back in junior high, which consisted of one just as embarrassing enabler, two boys who probably didn't know what to make of it, and a fourth person who you were very sure hated you at the time, but was best friends with the first one. You did not know shame from these poems at a young age, only their embarrassing nature. But once you saw the ease that one could read the third page, you lunged. Eager and desperate to get them out of his hands, trying so hard not to tear apart the precious and simultaneously excruciatingly mortifying memory.

In your haste, however, you had forgotten the mess you had made around you from your attempt to tidy. A crack of something underfoot, while your ankle ran into something else, and you stumbled towards his general direction, saved from falling only by your equilibrium being capable of righting itself much better than it ought to. But that action, combined with the blanched fear and desperation and the utter embarrassment, only served to pop the bubble of laughter that Lance had been holding back.

“I'm- I'm so sorry,” he said, between laughs. “But you literally wrote 'Lance is hot' in this one,” he said, holding up the third sheet.

You whined and groaned, unable to decide which noise you wanted to make. Your face, though despaired, flashed hot, and you just couldn't figure out how to respond to that one any better than you could exist, at this very moment, in this very room, with your husband finding perhaps The One Most Embarrassing Thing of your youth. Perhaps your very life. So you turned away and covered your face, whining.

“Don't- don't remind me!!!” But at least that was one of the better lines, you knew, [because at least that one was true]. But your reaction only added fuel to the flame; you knew he'd take the chance to fluster you, and you still couldn't help but react the way you did.

“ 'My love for Lance has grown by leaps and bounds',” he began, and you knew death was imminent. “ 'I'd hurt anyone who'd call him a hound'. Now, who would call me a hound anyways--”

“shUT UP. I was twelve. Or something. I WAS TRYING TO RHYME.” You said, finding yourself defending your youth's word choices, even if those choices left _a lot_ to be desired.

“ 'To me, Lance is hot'--”

“UGGHHHHHH I was _twelve_ , I didn't know what the fuck 'hot' actually meant, I thought it was something you used --- you know what nevermind I'm not even going to finish what I thought it meant”

He arched an eyebrow at the next line, “ 'He's everything these earth boys are not'. What, am I an alien?”

“SHUT UP!!!” You said, grabbing a nearby plush and chucking it at him. He laughed, blocking it with an arm and ducking his head. You lunged again, this time with only a bit more success at getting near enough for him to hold the papers up high as you tried to wrestle them from him.

“Gods damn your height...” you muttered, debating pushing him aside as you just. Glared at his teasing look, his blue eyes mischievous. But you didn't want to hurt him, so you pouted and glared, only to feel bad for glaring at him and having thrown the plush. But once the attempt at a withering look weakened, his eyes went from you back to the paper.

“I seem to have lost my spot....”

“GOOD.”

His eyes scanned the sheet, and you felt your cheeks flame up, knowing that he was still reading it. “Oh, here seems to be a good spot to continue--”

“FUCK”

He laughed as he put an arm around you, holding you close as a gesture of love, but you knew it was also to keep you from trying to lunge at the papers again.... You pouted, crossing your arms and biding your time as you wondered the best way out of this now.

“ 'To me, my life is incomplete. It's hard to keep the beat--” another groan from you as you remembered yet another spot where you forced a rhyme. “ 'See, without him/ I can't do much of anything'. Aw, that's not true--”

“Shut,” you growled. Maybe if you used your weight to pull down his arm....

“ 'How many parts this poem has, I cannot tell / These poems come from my love well.'” He paused here, trying to make sense of what you wrote. “Love well? As in you love well or---”

“The latter,” you groaned.

“That's adorable.”

“That's not.” You began to reach for the arm that held your 7th grade scrawl, trying to pull it down with all of your weight, but he shifted and your hands slipped. “Damnit.”

His hand flipped the sheet, and he looked at the last lines in a quick silence. A little concerned, you pulled away, wondering if you had written something that actually _did_ offend him somehow. But your mind couldn't recall a single word of the poem. It was only with recitation, with the words before you, could you remember anything about the creation process, and you looked again between the sheet and him.

“What? What is it?” Your eyes scanned the childish scrawl, which had become more hasty as the poem ended. You remember writing the ending in a haste, but.. why? What for? Was it during a break or meal period?

_And I have one remark to add... That a line in part one states... I wanted to add a line, I suppose / It's cause I love him so._

You blinked at the words. There was a crossed out line, but it was mostly just the last line written again, and everything else was as well as it could be, for what the poem was.

“Was there something wrong with how I ended it?” You asked, pausing a moment. “Its existence aside, I mean.”

Another pause. He cleared his throat.

“Did you always.... want to marry me?” he asked suddenly, and you felt your cheeks burst into flames, hotter than any other embarrassment the last several moments had provided.

“EH!?!?!?!?” Your eyes grew wide and you began to squirm, unsure of what to say, especially in regards to the subject at hand. “I- what? What does-- Lance, I-” you sputtered, unable to figure out anything right now. Your mind went blank, only the fading sense of embarrassment from the poems keeping you aware that this moment was real.

Suddenly aware of your discomfort, he quickly tried to fix it. “Ah, it's just that-- Your lines here,” he said, pointing towards the last bit you had hurriedly rushed through earlier.

You cautiously skimmed through it again, reading the same thing as before. “....Yeah?”

“ 'I didn't know why, but I wanted to end a line with propose, I suppose'.”

.

.

.

Silence.

Had there been an analog clock, you would have heard its ticking loudly.

Ticking away the seconds.

Ticking away time.

Ticking away the moment, until... When...

You felt heat rise off your entire body. Face, head, shoulders. Nothing in your head. Your hands began to tremble.

“I-I-I-I...”

“You...”

“w-w-wuh....”

“Uh-huh....”

You slumped to the floor, utterly defeated. You.... You didn't remember that. But the more you looked it over, looked at the papers, the lines that you had hastily scribbled down, the 'with propose I suppose' seeming like a line you forgot to scratch off half of, vague memories of the poems coming back, of making choices....

“OH. GOD.”

Lance knelt beside you, unsure of how to react to your apparent defeat. He didn't mean to cause you this much distress in teasing.

“Just.... end me..... please......”

“I'm sorry, Sarah, I didn't mean to take it that far.”

You feebly waved a hand at him, it looking like a white flag as you stayed on the floor, crumpled in embarrassment. “It's fine........ I didn't remember what anything on these poems were like, except for a thing or two.........” You felt his hand on your head, soothing strokes as you tried to speak through embarrassed sobs.

“Are you sure?”

“Y-yeah....” You rolled onto your side, the petting slowly bringing you down from the adrenaline high of the otherwise mortifying experience.

“Why did you even have these in there loose? I would have thought you had them in your art folder....” Which, ideally, would be the place you would store anything you had remotely considered to be, at the time, intentionally done as art. ….Which also may have been the reason why they _weren't_ , but it was too late to worry about it now. The damage had been done, and now you were having an out-of-body experience, in that you were still trying to leave this moment and never come back.

“YEAH, no kidding. I think past me wanted to play a cruel joke on future me.....”

“They certainly succeeded in that.” He sighed, placing his hand on your cheek. “Are you _sure_ your okay? Because I can give these to you to put away.”

You narrowed your eyes, suspicious. “You say that like you were going to continue....”

He shook his head. “Not anymore.”

You quickly sat up and snatched the papers from his hands, rifling through the three sheets, wondering _where the fuck_ you were going to put that one line and just how bad the other two poems were.

“Hey!”

“Shh.” You leaned against him, the silent signal understood immediately as he sat down on the floor and wrapped his arms around you. He rested his chin on your shoulder, looking apologetic. “I really am sorry,” he said again, but you just pat his cheek with your free hand. “I know.”

He kissed your cheek, and you nuzzled him back in acknowledgment.

You flipped to the first one, with the eye-searing sky blue, and winced. How did something over fifteen years old manage to stay so bright, much less on such yellowed paper? You blinked a few times, shifting until the ink was readable for me.

You felt Lance wince beside you. “What made you think this color was such a good idea to write a love poem in?”

“They were gel pens and they were _new_ ,” you told him, eyes adjusted and reading the poem. You started to snicker at the first stanza, because, oh stars, was it still true to this day.

“He's cool, he's daring, but that's his job,” you began, speaking as though you were the proud poet. Now you the one trying to hold back your own laughter. “Of course, I don't know his dob.”

Now it was his turn to groan at the horrible poetry. “Why did you rhyme it with _d.o.b_.?”

“Because my thesaurus wasn't a rhyming one.”

“You had a rhyming thesaurus?” he asked, even more confused.

“No, a spelling dictionary, but my point remains that I didn't have a rhyme lookup book of some sort.”

He just shook his head and laughed, nuzzling you as you carried on.

“ 'Why I like him, I don't know why / But he's the fighter of my eye.' Aww, babe, look. I knew you so well after just one day.”

“You're a dork.”

“Takes one to know one.”

“I know, I know.”

You scanned the next few lines, trying to hold back a barking laugh. “ 'He's a cool guy, I don't lie/ for he's famous worldwide./ Now I know his favorite type of Pokemon, / don't get me wrong--”

“Hey, you didn't rhyme on the next line”

“I gave up. I think.” You hastily scanned through, finding anything else fun to point out, until-- “OH SHIT, HAHAHA. Oh my gods there it is. There is the line.”

“ _That's_ why you wanted to sit here and read this after all of that? Just to find that one line--”

“Why are you expecting anything less of me?”

“...Did you really rhyme my name with 'advance'?” he squinted at the paper, hand reached out to tilt it to visibility for him.

“SHOOSH.”

You guys had gotten to the end of the paper, and you double checked that there was nothing on the backside before setting it down to the side. There was a strange feeling of uncertainty, having found these poems again, let alone having someone whose eyes were never meant to find them. Lance picked up the stack that you had set down, flipping over to the near-impossible pink one.

“What does this one say?”

You shrugged. “I dunno.”

He tilted the paper back and forth, trying to find a way to read it. “How did you even write this...?”

“You're asking the one with memory issues to tell you how they remembered writing a love poem that they somehow managed to wipe the contents of from their mind despite the apparent retention of its existence?”

“...Yes.”

“Fuck if I know.” You grabbed the paper from him, holding it out as the baby pink gel pen had effectively blended in with the yellow paper somehow.

“Is that my cousin's name on there?” he asked, reaching out once more for the paper. But you shrugged it away, knowing that if you had somehow brought up _her_ name in this, that this poem had to have been _bad_.

“Don't!” You swatted at his hand playfully. “Let _me_ read it first. Authors first.” After a bit of tilting and holding it up in different light, you managed to find a way to skim it.

“Nah, it's nothing.” You tossed it aside gently. Even if these poems were an instrument of torture, they were still an important part of you and your memories. You couldn't just risk it getting torn up; that might hurt more than if you had to recite this to a stadium full of people. It was a sign that you had lived. You may have been a little quirky, a little weird and over-performative at times, but you were still there, you still had thoughts and feelings, and you still did your best to understand them. You couldn't disrespect your old art like that, even if you were hesitant to call the poems 'art'.

“Nothing like the other poems were nothing?”

“Nothing like actual nothing.”

“Hmm....”

“What, I'm not lying!”

He grinned at you, hugging you tight. “ 'Cuz I'm a cool guy and I'm famous worldwide?” he added without missing a beat. “And you know my favorite type of Pokemon--”

“OH MY GOD”

You hastily tried to scramble away from him, but he had his arms around you. Pulling you back in, you let out a squealed laugh as he held you down.

“And you really really want to end your lines with propose?”

“I swear to all that is holy, if you do NOT stop reciting my stupid poetry from seventh grade, I will hit you with a pillow.” You playfully tugged away, only to be pulled back in. You looked at each other, both of your faces flushed with teasing at the childish words shared between the two of you.

“But, you know, I did propose. What would you write then?” He paused, looking up in the air as he thought for a moment. “I wonder, did you ever write anything else?”

“Alas, no, my fair prince, I found you _far_ too distracting once I had gotten to know you. Who could ever write wistful poetry, when they had the real deal before them?”

“The real deal?” he laughed.

“How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.”

“You don't even remember the rest of that one.”

“ _You_ don't know that!”

“Then how's the rest of it go?”

“Um.... You know what, that's not the point right now!”

“And, pray tell, what is, my darling?”

“That you're married to one hell of a poet. A real _prince_ of poetry. ...Hm... if I'm a hell of a poet, and a princely poet, does that make me a Hot Poetry Prince? Am I the one who deals out hot poems like rappers deal out hot beats?”

He shook his head at you, sighing. “You are very bad at this.”

“Yeah, well, look at what you married.”

“Someone who I love very much; and who has loved me for far longer than either of us imagined.”

Your face flushed red at his words, and you looked away, indignant. “Yeah, well, way to kill my jokes.”

“I love you, but your jokes are dead to begin with.”

“I am going to hit you with a pillow. Because I love you and do not want to hurt you, but also I want to hit you with a pillow very much right now.”


End file.
